Dohmen Life Science Services hires president

Dohmen Co. announced Tuesday it has hired Joe Nolan as president of Dohmen Life Science Services (DLSS) in Milwaukee.

Nolan most recently was chief commercial officer and senior vice president of Marathon Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on rare diseases, and chief commercial officer of Lundbeck Inc., a pharmaceutical company that focuses on brain diseases.

He also has worked at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Abbott Laboratories/Hospira, TAP Pharmaceuticals, Schering-Plough and Walgreens.

Dohmen Life Science Services, started in 2014, provides an array of services, including those involved in meeting regulatory requirements, commercializing products and managing daily operations, to drug and medical-device companies.

'Finding the right expertise at the right time in a product's development life cycle can be distracting and difficult for companies that want to stay focused on bringing great products to market and building strong patient relationships,' Nolan said in a statement. 'The DLSS model offers the industry a single resource to stay lean, act fast, mitigate risk and keep growing.'

Nolan earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame and a bachelor's in finance from Tulane University.

Earlier this month, the company bought a historic five-story office building at 215 N. Water St. in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward for an undisclosed price. Dohmen, which employs about 200 people in the Third Ward, also has operations at 190 N. Milwaukee St. and 200 N. Jefferson St.

The family-owned company, founded in 1858 as an apothecary, now consists of a portfolio of companies.

Cynthia LaConte, a member of the fifth generation to lead the company, is largely credited with remaking the firm since becoming its chief executive in 2009, including buying a string of companies that provide specialized services to drug and medical device companies.

Dohmen sold Restat, which managed prescription drug benefits, for $409.5 million to Catamaran Corp., a pharmacy benefit manager based in Lisle, Ill., about three years ago. And in 2006, its sold its wholesale drug business to Cardinal Health Inc. The purchase price was more than $100 million.

Nolan was hired after a national search to fill the position, LaConte said.

'We built DLSS because we believed industry shifts in precision medicine, healthcare consumerism and empowering technology, would create demand for a new life sciences services model. We placed the right bet, because we've seen incredible growth in this division over the last two years,' LaConte said.

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